Lindquistics the Musings of Marian Lindquist: Eggerts 1. Meet Billie and Ed.

I call this series, The Eggerts of Hayward. This my great-great grandfather, Ed Eggert on his wedding day in 1903. He married Billie Welch in Chicago. Billie was his second wife.

This is a four generation picture. Ed was born in Ohio in 1876. Next to Ed is his son, Laurence, the result of Ed's first marriage. Laurence was born in 1897 in Cleveland. Ed's father, Lewis, was born in

Germany

in 1841. Laurence's daughter, my grandmother, Audrey was born in Toronto in 1917.

This is Ed’s mother, Emma, she was born in 1845 in Germany.

Here is Ed with his older brother, Jesse. Jesse was born in 1871. He was 5 years Ed’s senior.

Ed's son, Laurence, when he was a boy, with his dog.

Ed’s first wife, Ella, nicknamed Lulu, with Laurence.

Ed, on the right, at age 27, 1903, the same year he married Billie. The 1900 census listed Ed, then age 24, as a machinist. After Ed’s divorce he moved from Cleveland to Chicago. By 1923 he was Superintendent at the telephone company. Ed does not look like a machinist in this picture.

Here is the house where Billie, Ed's second wife, grew up. Billie was born in 1880 in Prince Edward County, Ontario. She was the fourth of nine children.

The seated woman in this picture is Billie’s mother, Jane. The adult man is one of Billie's brothers, Garnet. The woman standing is Garnet’s wife, Sarah. The baby belongs to Garnet and Sarah. The little girl standing is Billie and Garnet’s youngest sister, Rossie. Rossie was a late-in-life baby. Billie named Rossie after her boyfriend “Ross.” But Billie did not marry Ross, Billie married Ed.

Billie's father, Robert, died two years after Billie married Ed.

This picture was also taken in 1903, the same year Billie married, at Billie’s childless Uncle’s home. He is on the lawn with his wife and a servant whom they treated as an adopted daughter at the time, but she did not maintain that status. Billie is also in this picture. Note the difference between the opulence of the house Billie grew up in and her Uncle's house. These homes were next door to each other. Billie's parents little farm was a small cut-out slice of her maternal grandfather's farm. Her Uncle received the lion's share because he was the surviving son while Billie's mother was a daughter.

Bertha and Billie Welch, up front, at a cousin’s wedding. Bertha was one of Billie's sisters and was four years older than Billie.

Here we are at Bertha’s 1898 wedding. Billie was her maid of honor.

After Ed and Billie married they vacationed at a cabin on Round Lake in Wisconsin.

Here we have Billie’s youngest sister, Rossie, at age 17.

At the same time Rossie was 17, Ed’s son, Laurence, was also 17. Laurence carried hard feelings against his father for leaving his mother. He spoke of the day his father left and how his mother cried and cried. They had to scrape to get money and rent bedrooms in their house. These feelings of animosity were passed down to Laurence’s only child, my grandmother, Audrey. Lulu was remarried by the 1910 census. (She and Ed were divorced sometime between 1900 and 1903.) Lulu’s second husband was well liked, but the hurt of that divorce never left.

Laurence, Rossie, Audrey. Here’s where the story gets a little complicated. In the Summer of 1916 Rossie came to visit her sister, Billie. Laurence came to visit his father, Ed. Rossie and Laurence fell in love and eloped. Billie and Ed were aghast and wanted to get the marriage annulled. Rossie told them she could possibly be pregnant. But she wasn't. Their daughter, Audrey was born in 1917, ten months after the wedding.

In 1922 Ed and Billie bought a resort in Hayward, Wisconsin. They must have loved vacationing at that cabin at Round Lake. Billie never had any children of her own. She loved animals. Note she is the only one not holding a gun for hunting season.

Before heading home to Ontario, after visiting the resort, Rossie and Laurence stopped in Cleveland to see Laurence’s mother, Ella Lulu, who is here with Audrey. Lulu died in 1924 from an accidental drug overdose. She was plagued by obesity. A doctor prescribed pills to lose weight. She was so happy the weight was coming off she took more pills, thinking that would take the weight off faster. She was greatly missed by her son and granddaughter.